The Terminus Book
by LitNiche
Summary: Inspired by /The Graveyard Book/ and /The Jungle Book/, Shepard is raised by Batarians, pirates and slavers of the Terminus System. How will this human come to be Commander Shepard, the savior of the galaxy, and how will being raised by one of humanity's foremost enemies shape her? Shep's besties, and the lovely Liara will indeed make their appearances. OCs as well.
1. Mother's Raid

Obligatory (and thus Sardonic) Disclaimer: This is first and foremost an exercise. It heavily borrows from Neil Gaiman's _The Graveyard Book_ and Kipling's _The Jungle Boo__k_ and unabashedly so, thus I do not claim any sort of ownership. So if you are at all connected with Harper's publishing -firstly, let me beg you to introduce me to Gaiman (trap him somewhere, leave me riddled clues to his whereabouts, _something!_)-let me remind you that he tends to look the other way when it comes to his works on the interwebs and their subsequent and bounteous admiration aka fanwork. As far as Kipling goes, the public owns that shit now.

Image cred: "ME: I belong to you (Preview)" by Tripower on deviantART

A/N to Past Readers: I have been fairly MIA regarding other stories on my page for a myriad of personal reasons. If you read _Aftereffects_, do not lose hope. The last chapter is written and will eventually be published. It's the final chapter-the final nail on the coffin of my baby on ffnet -so I am taking my sweet time with it. I'm sorry you have to wait. As far as _LiaraFemshep One Shots_ and my other stuff, I continue to write those as well; I simply haven't written one that I merit ready. Thank you so much for your continued support! This starts out darker (much less fluffy) than my other pieces, but it will all in all be a playful piece.

A/N to _All_ Readers: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think ^^

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Chapter One: Mother's Raid

It was seven o'clock, dusk, of a very warm evening on the human colony located in the Attican Traverse on a planet newly called Mindoir. In the near darkness, there was a hand outstretched, a finger playing at the trigger of a gun. The once stolen, now _properly cared for_ claymore shotgun had a grip of melted down, but still lovingly polished salarian medallion platinum, and a blade at the end that was sharper than any omni's. If you were shot or cut by the gun, you would never know it.

The gun had done everything it was meant to do on the Mindoir colony, and both the blade and the grip were wet and rusty red from its work.

The door to the farmhouse was still open, just enough, where the gun and the woman who held it had strode in without hesitation, and the faint scent of metal wisped into the air from pools of blood turned to mist when the wind from the open door blew through the home. The woman, Mother, paused at the stairs. On her left pant leg, she cleaned the blade. She tore a section of cloth that hung over the couch so that she could clean the grip too. It might seem pointless to do so before the job was done, but she knew there was only one human left in the small farmhouse and it didn't have enough blood in it to truly dirty her gun. She had left the man in his bed, the woman on the hallway floor, surrounded by pictures of the new family in different outfits and posing in different positions. That only left the infant, a girl barely two Mindoir years of age. One more human and she was finished with this planet.

She tightened her hold on the grip. Mother was, if she were to pin herself to adjectives, industrious, professional, and thorough. She would not let herself leave until the job was done, the encroaching Human Alliance forces be damned. Her four eyes blinked up the stairs, each step enveloped in more darkness than the last.

The infant's room was at the top of the staircase. Mother hefted her legs up the stairs, her feet remarkably silent on the wooden steps considering the weight of her armor. She opened the freshly painted door, and stood at the entry. The darkness of her iris-less eyes reflected Mindoir's moon and the sheer curtains wafting in the planet's breeze above the window it shone through. Beneath the curtains, a wooden box of sorts with a miniature holo projection of the Sol system twirling and hovering above the box, held the child. There were slated sides to the box, making it appear more like a cage than a resting place. Mother leaned over the railing and saw the lumpy shape that she took to be the infant—too young to join the other survivors of her raid, now slaves, aboard her ship. She holstered her gun on her back and spied down at the thing.

The child had a scraggly patch on her head of red fur, and when she raised it from its bed, two big eyes with piercingly green irises stared back at her. She set it down on the floor, more curious than anything, about what it would do.

Little did Mother know that since it had learned the art of walking on its two feet, the child had become its mother and father's despair. Cabinets and drawers were means to explore—stepladders with which kitchen counters that held sharp cutting knives became a jungle gym, and electric outlets could be tested with the poke of a tiny, fat finger.

When the thing began to climb up Mother as if she were an arboreal plant, the batarian couldn't help a chuckle in the silent night. It struggled, fell, landing softly though gracelessly on its padded rear. It did this a few times until at last it reached Mother's gun. There, on the salarian medallion grip, it sunk its rear end and was apparently content to stay there playing with the grooves of Mother's armor. Mother's brow arched that the child had managed to completely bypass the blade and any number of other obstacles that should have ended the little beast for her.

As if drawing her gun, she reached back for the human over her shoulder and held her at an arm's length, examining her bit by bit. She sniffed it with her eight nostrils and hummed. It had been many raids, after all, since she had chosen a prize for herself—something to groom into one of her children, her slaving crew. Holding the girl like a sack of flour, apparently to the infant's delight—high-pitched, clipped sounds signaled laughter in humans, she knew—Mother left the farmhouse and Mindoir for her ship.


	2. Clan

Chapter Two: Clan

Batarians outside Council Space have few rules to live by. Being outside the Batarian home system (Harsa), in and of itself is, in fact, against the rules of the Batarian Empire. The Terminus System is deemed lawless by the Council and blamed for any and everything that goes wrong in the Traverse. The Council is not entirely incorrect. Though Batarians have restricted themselves to their own territories, there are those that wander the galaxy freely: pirates, slavers, mercs.

One of the few rules recognized even among the lawless is that when a Batarian marries, he or she may withdraw from the Clan, gaining true freedom. However any new souls brought aboard not as slaves, but as Batarian Clan, must, as soon as the new members are old enough to stand on their feet, be brought to the Clan. Every quarter orbital rotation of the Batarian homeworld Khar'shan, the Clan converges so that they may meet their new children. After the child is accepted, the ship captain responsible for it and the child itself is free to do as they please, though until the child makes its first slaving run no excuse is accepted if a grown Batarian of the Clan sells or enslaves one of them. The offender, instead, becomes enslaved. A moment's reflection should reveal this rule's importance.

Mother had already broken one rule today in that she had waited until Shepard could not only totter, but hold a gun to bring her before the Clan. The ship resembled that of a quarians—mismatched pieces of wreckage that somehow managed mass effect space flight. Jath'Amon, a hefty Batarian that lead the Clan by secrecy and cunning and wore an ever-present and thus unreadable smile, sprawled on the central seat. To his right and left, seated below and above, sat another ninety-nine Council members. Jath'Amon had led the Council for three orbits of Khar'shan though younger, less cunning Batarians sought his seat. He had fallen into the custody of the Human Alliance twice during skirmishes for new worlds that had left him scarred, but knowledgeable of the human race and its ways.

There was little noise on deck, the only ruckus coming from the children being brought into the clan chamber aboard Jath'Amon's ship as they tumbled over each other in front of the Clan, before their Mothers and Fathers. The Clan merely observed the children—some turian, some vorcha, quarian, and more. A few Mothers and Fathers pushed their newest crewmembers further toward the Council so that they would not be overlooked and they could go about their business sooner rather than later.

Jath'Amon, upon his seat, cried "Silence! The trial is nigh!"

Mother prodded Shepard with her claymore's butt, halting the little human's tumblings with a snarling krogan.

Jath'Amon did not hesitate. All children brought before the Clan seemed valuable assets that would one day benefit the Clan. At last, his eyes fell upon Shepard. "Mother of the _Frelan_," Jath'Amon waved her forward, his voice deeper with urgency. "Where was this one found?"

"A human colony on Mindoir, Great Father," Mother replied.

"Does not the Human Alliance have true claim of this child of humanity, this blight? We are a fleet of pirates, not military."

The audience surrounding the Clan echoed Jath'Amon's concerns. A chorus of deep growls poured down upon Mother, with one voice piercing the crowd "What have the The Batarian Clan to do with a human child's fate? Who else speaks for this child?" The chamber hushed at the challenge. Another member, besides Mother, would have to speak for the child.

One of the few creatures respected among the Clan by all—Thane, a quiet and almost ethereal drell who was once accepted among Mother's children, but possessed his own ship now—would speak. His black shadow dropped down into the chamber.

"The human?" his gargled voice addressed them. "I will speak for the human child. Under my care and Mother's, the Alliance will not know her. I myself will teach her the ways of shadows."

With this, another clamor of voices erupted. Most anticipated that the child would die before the Alliance would ever learn of her existence. What harm could one human do in the meantime? Let her live with Mother of the _Frelan_.

A laugh, deep and unsettling, could be heard above the roar of voices. Heads turned and the crowd parted for the owner. Her expression teetered between boredom and beguilement.

They knew her, the Clan, for no one breathes in the Terminus without encountering the asari or her mercenaries, and there is no forgetting her.

She rose from her seat and made her way through the crowded chamber until she stood before Shepard. Blue eyes locked with green as she spoke to them all. In a voice as sharp and precise as Mother's blade, she said "To kill such a pretty thing would be a shame and that would be her fate if you do not accept her, Batarians, would it not? She may make better sport for you when she is grown. Mother of the _Frelan _has spoken on her behalf as has Thane Krios. I, Aria T'Loak, offer not my voice, but something I know you all love even more: credits. A human raised in the Terminus by a Batarian will be well worth it," she sneered at the child as she finished, bending to her level.

Shepard moved her chin away when a purple digit propped it up to examine her further and she did not miss it when the Batarians all nodded in agreement, Mother included. All knew the asari's price could not be matched and the human's fate was now secured. Batarians outside Council Space have few rules to live by, and of the few observed today to accept Shepard as part of the Batarian Clan, the human child had just learned the most important one: Aria was the Pirate Queen.


End file.
